I Found the Courage to Create

I Found the Courage to Create

For many years the sound bite I used to describe my creative life was that I was in constant motion, always searching, always trying, to find the courage to create. I hesitated to claim certain book publications because they were published by small presses or in foreign countries. I worried about calling myself a poet even after I published a verse novel. I couldn’t imagine calling myself an artist even though I had some of my work hanging on the walls of an art gallery. I resisted calling myself a photographer despite the many people who bought my work.

I told people, I told myself, I was trying to find the courage to create.

But I lied. I was creating all the time. What I needed to find was the courage to claim my creative identity.

Hello, my name is Susan Taylor Brown and I’m a writer, of books and poetry, of essays and more. I’m an artist, with a weakness for mixed-media featuring dogs, and I’m a photographer who stands still in the garden and waits for the birds to pose in front of my camera.

This new website brings, at last, my three creative identities together under one roof. This blog will dip into all areas of my creative life. I give up trying to keep the writer, the artist, and the photographer in separate rooms. Why should I? They inspire each other, they feed off each other, they need each other.

Thank you, Jenn. Trying to find my place to shine. I spent four months rebuilding this website and the last year training the new dog not to go everywhere with a part of my body in her mouth. (Spent the first six months with her in pain from all the black and blue marks she gave me. Hardest rescue dog I’ve ever had, but the sweetest too.) Hope you are doing well.